Meet Los Angeles-based Artist Deborah Joan Lanino
Deborah Joan Lanino is a painter and visual artist based in Los Angeles. You can find out more about her on her website, Facebook, and Instagram.
CATHOLIC ARTIST CONNECTION: Where are you from originally, and what brought you to your current city?
DEBORAH JOAN LANINO: I am originally from New York and currently live in Los Angeles. We moved to California in 2001.
How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist?
Beauty has the capacity to induce awe and wonder. Art can be a way to bring people closer to God. I am a Catholic and I am an artist. I remember drawing as soon as I could hold a crayon and was fortunate that my family encouraged my love of the arts. My first sentence was “I See.” I have always admired the sacred art that is in churches, especially the stained glass. When I was a college junior at Pratt, studying abroad in Florence, Italy, I traveled north on a train, and saw the Catholic Churches, the museums and an exhibition in Vercelli, commemorating 400 years since the death of Renaissance painter Bernardino Lanino (1512-1583). I learned about the prolific Lanino Workshop in Vercelli and of my ancestral connections to this great artist. In my work, I use Renaissance techniques such as chiaroscuro (lights and darks), sfumato (blurring edges) pentimento (painting over), thin transparent layers of glazes and thick impasto. As a Catholic, my artwork features themes from scripture of faith, hope and love. I give thanks to God. My goal is to uplift and to bring beauty and positivity to the viewer.
Where have you found support among your fellow artists for your Catholic faith?
Through art gallery openings, art fairs and speaking on artist panel talks.
How can the Church be more welcoming to artists?
By collaborating with artists, commissioning artists and by hosting in person events. In LA, St Vitus in Northridge recently founded The Thomistic Artists Guild, dedicated to exploring the intersection of the seven main types of fine art: music, literature, sculpture, film, theater, painting, and architecture with Catholic patrimony. St. Francis has their own music group, to provide contemporary music, accessible to the congregation, which complements the liturgy, promotes personal prayer, and spiritual growth. St Monica’s Catholic Church has an Advent Fair where Catholic artists display their work to the community.
How have you found or built community as a Catholic artist in your city?
I have found community as a Catholic artist through attending Catholic artist retreats, conferences, art openings, exhibitions and art fairs. Please feel free to reach out if you are a Catholic artist interested in building community!
How can the artistic world be more welcoming to artists of faith?
By exhibiting curated art shows with themes of faith in museums and galleries. Also by hosting artists of faith in artist panel talks that include musicians, writers, architects, film makers, actors, poets and visual artists.
How do you financially support yourself as an artist?
When I lived in New York, my first full time job was at the MOMA in group tours. Then I worked as a designer, an art director and an illustrator for several years. My first published book was the Christmas classic, “The Littlest Angel.” When we moved to Los Angeles, I taught college art for over ten years at the Art Institute and then I worked full time as an art teacher at a private middle school. I recently received an art grant. Nowadays, I focus on painting, applying for grants and looking into art residencies.
What is your top advice for Catholic artists post-graduation?
Be true to your work and your work will be true to you.